Young scientists display their work at R.I. Science and Engineering Fair

Donita Naylor Journal Staff Writer donita22

Sunday

Mar 18, 2018 at 9:28 PMMar 18, 2018 at 9:28 PM

More than 250 projects were judged Saturday, with 188 judges awarding first-, second- and third-place ribbons and choosing the top 10 winners in each of two divisions: high school and middle school.

WARWICK, R.I. — Jellyfish don't make good pets, cinnamon can increase memorization, cows give more milk while listening to classical music than to rock, a camelback bridge can carry the most weight of any popsicle stick bridge design, and speaking before a prerecorded audience seen on a virtual reality headset produces the same physical signs of fear as speaking before a live audience.

These are some of the findings of young scientists at the 2018 R.I. Science and Engineering Fair, held Saturday and Sunday in the common area of the Community College of Rhode Island's Warwick campus.

More than 250 projects were judged on Saturday, with 188 judges awarding first-, second- and third-place ribbons and choosing the top 10 winners in each of two divisions: high school and middle school.

Mark Fontaine, a science teacher at CCRI and Times² Academy who has directed the fair for 24 years, said judges were selected from science teachers, college professors, professional engineers and sponsors.

Raytheon, for example, sent 30 judges, Fontaine said.

The presentations were on display, with the students standing by to answer questions, from noon to 3 p.m. Sunday, when the fair was open to parents and the public. U.S. Sen. Jack Reed stopped by, as he does every year that he's in Rhode Island during the fair, Fontaine said.

At her booth festooned with jellyfish made from sparkling gauze and ribbons, Aria Teare, 12, a seventh grader at St. Augustine School in Providence, said she fell in love with jellyfish at the Mystic Aquarium last summer. "They were gorgeous," she said Sunday. Her curiosity became the title of her project, "Do Jellyfish Make Good Pets?"

Her conclusion: "No, they actually don't." Her mother, Carolyn Teare, 52, of Providence, found a redeeming quality in jellyfish: "Well, they're quiet."

Aria explained her results: "The tank requirements to keep them alive are very, very expensive." And after two or three weeks, she said, "they die or get so big" that you can't keep them at home.

For "Truss-Worthy: A Comparative Study of Different Bridge Trusses," Rachael Nester, 17, from Coventry High School, built bridges with popsicle-style craft sticks and found that the camelback design bore the heaviest loads. She said she thought Cumberland had one, and she's right, the west span of the Berkeley Bridge between Lincoln and Cumberland is a camelback truss.

Anabel Cordero, a senior at Times² Academy in Providence, administered memory tests to 77 people before and after putting a drop of cinnamon oil on their palms. She found that two of cinnamon's components, cinnamaldehyde and epicatechin, together improved memorization by 12 percent.

Leah Ribner-Martin, a student at North Kingstown High School, compared the milk output of a herd of dairy cows while a radio was tuned to a classical music station, with their output while a rock station was playing. Classical music resulted in more milk, she said.

Sree Dasari, of La Salle Academy, made a 360-degree video of a classroom full of students and transferred it to a virtual-reality headset. She put the headset on her test subjects and studied their heart rates as they made a presentation to the virtual audience. Heart rates jumped significantly, she found, as they do when a student addresses a live audience. She said she'd like to develop inexpensive virtual reality units that would track the user's vital signs, for use in overcoming fear of situations such as public speaking.

The Best in Fair winners were selected Sunday, but they will not be announced until an awards ceremony, also at CCRI-Warwick, on Wednesday. The two senior winners will represent Rhode Island in May at the 2018 International Science and Engineering Fair in Pittsburgh.

The top 10 percent of the junior winners will compete in an essay contest, said Fontaine, whose tie was decorated with E=MC².

— dnaylor@providencejournal.com

(401) 277-7411

On Twitter: @donita22

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